The outer garments of 1111'11 and women can hardly be treated in e4)111leetioll with those questions of artistic effect and elegant fashion which are treated tinder Cosri :111:. it may be noted. however, that there is always a disposition to clothe those persons who are going about net ive duties in such a way as not to hamper the move ment of the legs. .\mong the ancients and in modern .lapin. as of course ill the senti-tropi• cal and tropical lands, Ibis is obtained by -imply leaving the hbg, uncovered: but the extraordinary resort to this same expedient in lands as eold and damp as inedi.eval Ireland and the Melt lands of Scotland since the sixteenth century dillieult to explain. The neeounts we have of the Irish at the time of the first Etedish conquest and later constantly recur to the mention of un clothed legs, even among the princes of the land. As for the kilted Highlanders. there is little doubt that the plaited petticoat worn as the one garment from the waist down is of very recent. introduction. It is the successor of that part of the belted plaid which was arranged as a skirt, Confined above by the belt and allowed to hang at a greater or less as required. line is reminded of the dress of Hindu and Javanese Weln•ml—a large piece of stuff neither cut out nor sewed up, but simply adjusted around the body. Of this nature was the belted plaid—a woolen blanket held with brooches and a belt in any one of several dispositions. But at a time generally fixed as the sixteenth century it was divided. for military reasons: the plaid was made smaller and worn over the upper part of the body, partly concealing the shirt, while the philibeg or skirt was put on separately. The change, however, made no difference in the nakedness of the thighs and lower part of the body, which remained under either condition covered only by a loose floating piece of woolen, while the legs below the knees were covered with stockings of inne kind; perhaps always cut out of cloth and sewn up, as in modern Highland military costume.
With these exceptions. the progress of dress in Europe and the Europeanized lands in other con tinents has been toward greater and still greater complexity. The attempt to leave the lower limbs of hard-working people in freedom has re sulted in a series of experiments in knee-breeches, pantaloons, trousers. and the like: but in a way hard to explain the lower garments have grown generally less and less convenient and less and less comely. The human body lends itself very badly to dress, except that of the simplest robe held at the neck and draped at the waist. Every thing else has to he adjusted to it with great care and constant changes and shiftings; and that the light and easily managed short breeches should have been superseded by the clumsiest of all garments. the modern trousers of stiff cloth. is inexplicable. On the other hand, the dress of women has been a constant hindrance to activity, and here again there is a disposition not to in crease the ease of the body by diminishing the number and weight of complicated clothes, but to add to the difficulty and to the danger of modern apparel by separating women's garments at the waist. compelling the body to carry a dragging weight of skirts. which our increasing fondness for warmth makes yearly heavier. The complete covering dress of women in its simplest form, as we see it in Italian works of art of the fifteenth century, although lending itself less to bodily activity than the dress of men, is far more ra tional than men's dress in other respects; lint the changing of fashions, and the determination of poor people to dress like those who are wealthy, interfere with anything like common sense in the matter except inn mare instances. (See FAsntoN.) Consult the authorities referred to under Co:A TI:ME.